She displayed this again and again, notably when the IRA tried to murder her during theToryPartyConference in 1984, and nearly succeeded, blowing up her hotel in the middle of the night.
And when you looked at the audience at theToryPartyconference, it was exactly the sort of people we're talking about - traditionalists - what used to be called the "blue rinse brigade".
Insofar as people knew him at all, their overriding image was his speech at the age of 16 to theTorypartyconference, with his floppy hair and his coy grin at Margaret Thatcher, then Tory leader.